The city of Carmel accused Pacific Gas and Electric Co. on Monday of stonewalling its demands for information about the March gas explosion that leveled a cottage and demanded that state regulators step in to get the answers.

"The explosion could easily have killed and seriously injured people, and whether PG&E violated the law should not be ignored," Mayor Jason Burnett said in a letter urging the safety chief of the state Public Utilities Commission to open an investigation into the March 3 blast. The agency's staff has begun a preliminary inquiry, but not the full-scale regulatory probe that could lead to fines.

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The explosion west of Highway 1, which destroyed a one-bedroom cottage, raised questions about apparent gaps in PG&E's records of its gas pipeline network, Burnett said in the letter.

Utilities commission spokesman Chris Chow said the agency's staff investigation is under way and that officials had not received Carmel's letter.

PG&E spokesman Greg Snapper said the decision on whether to open such a probe "is a matter for our regulator to address."

"We'll continue cooperating fully" with the commission staff's investigation, Snapper said. "This is in addition to the extensive third-party assessment that was conducted" by a consulting firm.

The explosion happened when a crew inadvertently cut into a plastic sleeve inside an older steel pipe. PG&E's maps did not show that the plastic line was there.

Gas seeped from the plastic line into the surrounding steel pipe and eventually flooded the cottage, where it exploded. No one was in the home, and there were no injuries.

Last week, PG&E officials said the company had received federal grand jury subpoenas related to the Carmel blast, but said they did not know the precise reason for the probe.

Sources say federal officials are investigating whether PG&E broke federal pipeline safety laws that require that it keep records about repairs and other work done on gas lines. PG&E officials have said they made changes to the company's work protocols after the explosion.

Burnett said PG&E officials have been "unable or unwilling to answer the very straightforward questions that Carmel has posed to them" about what led up to the blast. He said the report by PG&E's hired consultant on the explosion "does not look at the policies and procedures of the company and whether the business practices of the company follow the law."

The mayor said PG&E has refused Carmel officials' request for an investigation into whether the company broke the law. "We have concluded that PG&E is not going to provide that," Burnett said. "Our only recourse is to request" that state regulators intervene.